Comments on The Secular Outpost: The Gospels and Critical History

Bradley Bowen, Sometimes you sound reasonable, bu...

2012-01-14T08:43:30.347-06:00

Bradley Bowen,

Sometimes you sound reasonable, but other times you say something like this: "Since Jesus held and promoted false and morally repugnant beliefs about God..."

Do you take an equally dim view of Ghandi, who extolled Jesus?

Bradley Bowen, You wrote, "But the people in...

2012-01-14T08:40:58.441-06:00

Bradley Bowen,

You wrote, "But the people in the pews of Evangelical Christian churches are largely and blissfully ignorant of how modern NT scholars read and interpret the Gospels, and the same is true of people in the pews of Catholic churches, and mainline Protestant churches as well."

The people in the pews that you describe are indeed in darkness, but it is not the darkness of an absence of NT scholarship. Rather it is a darkness that shrouds NT scholars and you as well. That is, it is the darkness of not reading the words of the NT documents and seeking to practice them. There is no significant debate about the words of the Bible - book stores are full of them, all saying essentially the same sentences. It is their meaning we are missing, and that is only gained by obeying the parts of the Bible that are easy to understand, e.g. love God with all your heard and your neighbor as yourself.

Bradley Bowen, You wrote, "It is my contenti...

2012-01-14T08:33:42.720-06:00

Bradley Bowen,

You wrote, "It is my contention that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make a strong case for the death and resurrection of Jesus, based on such uncertain premises."

Then perhaps you should reexamine your premises.

You wrote, "Proving a miracle requires much better evidence than what the Gospels have to offer."

Do not forget that it is not just the gospels, but the entire collection of New Testament documents that should be brought to bear on this question. Recognize also that skepticism is not an invention of modernity. A significant social movement arose in the 1st Century AD, in the fact of enormous skepticism, and it was driven by the acceptance of eyewitness testimony that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead, and that this happened according to the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures. To single out the gospels and focus on them as if they existed in a vacuum independent of the other NT documents and the movement which spawned them all is to address the question myopically.

Keith Parsons, You wrote, "So, the very task...

2012-01-14T08:24:18.252-06:00

Keith Parsons,

You wrote, "So, the very task of apologetics seems to require that very many of the details be taken as literally true."

The vast majority of the New Testament documents were written for purposes other than apologetics.

Bradley Bowen, Regarding your 1, 2, 3 to me: 1. ...

2012-01-14T04:27:34.471-06:00

Bradley Bowen,

Regarding your 1, 2, 3 to me:

1. The New Testament was assembled by folks much closer to the time and scene than us, with the primary criterion for inclusion being apostolic origin. On what basis do you reject the judgment of antiquity, as well as the claims of the documents themselves?

2. You are expecting ancient writers to write as modern ones. The gospels are obviously collective memoirs, transcribed from oral tradition. They are ipso facto multiply attested.

3. Again, your chief accusation against these ancient writings seems to be that they are not modern. Technically, you are correct...but it's an absurb point to be making.

Jesus is our Lord.

Bradley Bowen, You said, "So, if I express s...

2012-01-14T04:16:11.651-06:00

Bradley Bowen,

You said, "So, if I express some degree of doubt about the claim that Jesus' side was pierced with a spear, I'm not taking the position of an extreme skeptic or liberal. I'm merely thinking in a way that is consistent with the skepticism of leading Evangelical NT scholars concerning the historical reliability of the details of the crucifixion found in the Fourth Gospel."

The Evans quote was not his best moment. In any case, you are "straining out gnats and swallowing camels" as Jesus would put it. That is, you are ignoring the corroborated testimony that this descendant of David, through whom God had worked, was crucified unfairly according to the Scriptures in order to focus on details of that crucifixion that even Evans acknowledges in his quote can be reconciled by theories other than his own.

You thus remind me of Johnnie Cochran when he boldly called for OJ's jury to be skeptical about the evidence, proclaiming to them, "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit!" (with Prof. Evans like some glove expert in the background, chagrined that you'd use his work to get a murderer off the hook).

The New Testament documents are clear and emphatic on the point that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the expectations created by the Old Testament documents. Let us major on the majors and minor on the minors.

Mike Gantt said... Do you seriously suggest that...

2012-01-14T02:39:43.979-06:00

Mike Gantt said...

Do you seriously suggest that because the apostles did not follow the MLA Stylebook we cannot trust their accounts of Jesus?
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Response:

1. The apostles did not write the Gospels.

2. Whoever it was who did write them failed to identify who they interviewed or what sources they used for specific stories/sayings/details.

3. Obviously, one can identify a person who was the source of information for a specific story/saying/detail or describe the process of how one obtained that information without the use of footnotes, endnotes, etc. The problem is that no such identification of sources for specific stories/sayings/details occurs in the Gospels.

This means that even if the authors of one or more of the Gospels had contact with an eyewitness (such as an apostle), we have no way of determining which stories/sayings/details are based on such eyewitness testimony and which are not.

Craig A Evans and Robert Gundry are two leading Ev...

2012-01-14T02:25:18.256-06:00

Craig A Evans and Robert Gundry are two leading Evangelical Christian NT scholars. They are not liberal NT scholars, nor are they at all sympathetic with the skepticism of the Jesus Seminar scholars.

However, they do recognize that there are problems with the historical reliability of the Fourth Gospel (at least).

Here is an example of how they view the details of the Fourth Gospel(Evans commenting on Mark 15:25):

===============
"But it was the third hour, and they crucified him." The third hour was 9:00 A.M. According to John 19:14, "it was about the sixth hour," that is, noon. John may have delayed the time in order to have Jesus crucified at approximately the same time that the people began to slaughter the Passover lambs, which Cranfield (455-56) regards as the most probable explanation....Gundry thinks that the Fourth Evangelist deliberately pushed Jesus' crucifixion deeper into the day, so that Jesus' death would take place at the same time the Paschal lambs were being killed. He is probably correct, which makes harmonizing theories unnecessary.... Mark's time accords better with the notice that Jesus had been presented to Pilate..."early in the morning" (v 1).

(Craig Evans, Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 34B, Mark 8:27-16:20, p.503)

============

Although one can try to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the Gospel of Mark and the Fourth Gospel, Gundry and Evans, two leading Evangelical NT scholars, believe it is more likely that the Fourth Gospel deliberately altered the time of day that Jesus was crucified, for the sake of a theological point.

But if the author (or editor)of the Fourth Gospel deliberately changed the time of the crucifixion of Jesus for the sake of a theological point, then other details about the crucifixion might also have been altered for the sake of a theological point.

For example, the only Gospel that mentions anything about a spear wound to Jesus' side is the Fourth Gospel. Perhaps that detail was invented for the sake of some theological point. In fact, the Fourth Gospel emphasizes how the use of the spear on Jesus, as opposed to the practice of breaking the legs of the crucified person, fulfills a prophecy:

"These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, 'None of his bones shall be broken.' And again another passage of scripture says, 'They will look upon the one whom they have pierced.'" (John 19:36 & 37, RSV)

So there is a clear and obvious theological motivation for the invention of the spear wound.

Furthermore, this theological motivation is very similar to the motivation that apparently generated the fictional detail that the crucifixion started at noon. In both cases, there is a theological point: showing Jesus to be analogous to the Paschal lambs that were sacrificed for Passover. (Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12 specify that no bone of the Passover lamb may be broken).

Thus, the single most powerful bit of evidence for the death of Jesus on the cross is the spear wound to his side (along with an argument that the spear pierced Jesus' heart), but this claim is based on only one Gospel, the Fourth Gospel, which two leading Evangelical NT scholars view as somewhat unreliable on the details of the crucifixion, at least when there is a clear theological motivation that would explain the generation of a fictional detail.

So, if I express some degree of doubt about the claim that Jesus' side was pierced with a spear, I'm not taking the position of an extreme skeptic or liberal. I'm merely thinking in a way that is consistent with the skepticism of leading Evangelical NT scholars concerning the historical reliability of the details of the crucifixion found in the Fourth Gospel.

Bradley Bowen, You said, "Given that there a...

2012-01-13T17:02:16.227-06:00

Bradley Bowen,

You said, "Given that there are no footnotes and no end notes in the original Gospels, and no explicit attribution of any specific facts or information to a specific eyewitness (or to a specific person's hearsay testimony), I don't see how one can place more than a fairly modest level of confidence in the details of the Gospel accounts."

Do you seriously suggest that because the apostles did not follow the MLA Stylebook we cannot trust their accounts of Jesus?

Bradley, Ha Ha! It was a pleasure reading your e...

2012-01-13T09:52:23.355-06:00

Bradley,

Ha Ha! It was a pleasure reading your expert dismantling of "K-dog." I don't have the time or the inclination to make a point-by-point response to every blowhard that blows up (often at great length) over something I post. However, I am glad to see that you did. You remained polite and scholarly while effectively rebutting every point. Good job!

K-Dog said... A critical historian would try to ...

2012-01-12T17:24:32.651-06:00

K-Dog said...

A critical historian would try to make it plain just where the eyewitness testimony ends and where surmise, conjecture, or hearsay begins. With the Gospels we just cannot say. [a quote from Keith Parson's post]

AGAIN, READ RICHARDK BAUCKHAM

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Response:

Just pointing to a book is not a reasonable way to argue a point. I assume that you have read Baucham's book, and that you believe some reasons or arguments in that book are compelling or at least plausible. If you have read the book, and if you did find some reason or argument in the book to be compelling or plausible, then you should be able to at least summarize the reason(s) arguments here, even if there are too many details to fully cover in a brief comment.

It is obvious that Keith's point applies to the Gospels; they do not give any clear indication of the source for any specific teachings of Jesus or any specific events in the life of Jesus, including the trials, crucifixion, burial, and alleged post-crucifixion appearances. Certainly Bauckham does not dispute this obvious point.

So, unless you can give some sort of clue about what points or claims Bauckham makes that would be relevant here, it is hard for me to imagine a significant objection to Keith's point.

Given that there are no footnotes and no end notes in the original Gospels, and no explicit attribution of any specific facts or information to a specific eyewitness (or to a specific person's hearsay testimony), I don't see how one can place more than a fairly modest level of confidence in the details of the Gospel accounts.

Most of the details are probably derived from oral and written traditions that have been shaped and altered by non-eyewitnesses over a period of decades, and then shaped and altered again when translated from Aramaic to Greek, and then shaped and altered again when used by the unknown authors of the Gospels, and in the case of some Gospels (e.g. the Fourth), shaped and altered yet again by editors who revised the original version of the Gospel.

Even granting the assumption that the oral and written traditions used by the authors of the Gospels derive from eyewitnesses of the life and ministry of Jesus, we still cannot rationally place much confidence in the accuracy and reliability of specific details which (for all we know) might well be little more than gossip among superstitious Christian believers that was written down decades after the events in question.

...and even when we have sworn eyewitness testimon...

2012-01-12T13:50:33.277-06:00

...and even when we have sworn eyewitness testimony that is written down verbatum by a court stenographer, and when the eyewitnesses are cross-examined by a professional lawyer who is representing the defendant.

K-Dog said... 8) BOO! If someone couldn’t write h...

2012-01-12T13:22:05.691-06:00

K-Dog said...

8) BOO! If someone couldn’t write history unless they saw all the events they are writing about with their own two eyes, I dare say that you would eliminate a vast vast amount of history. It’s all about sources sir, it’s all about sources.

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Response:

We who are skeptical about the resurrection claim do not hold the view that history can only be written by eyewitnesses of the alleged historical events.

Obviously, an historian should make use of the best information available at the time he/she is writing the account. You play the hand you are dealt. But in some cases, this means one must make use of information or sources that are questionable, biased, and/or have significant gaps. The overall principle is this:

1. Use the best data you can find, but be honest with yourself by recognizing and acknowledging the weaknesses, problems, and gaps in the data you are using.

Furthermore, I would advocate a few other principles:

2. Eyewitness testimony is more accurate and more reliable than hearsay testimony.

3. Third or fourth-hand hearsay testimony (as in oral traditions that are passed on for decades) is less accurate and less reliable than hearsay testimony that reports the assertions/stories of an eyewitness.

4. The testimony of an unidentified eyewitness should be treated as less reliable than the testimony of an identified eyewitness, other things being equal.

5. Bias introduces significant issues of reliability, so if an eyewitness has a significant bias or interest in the issues at hand, such eyewitness testimony is less reliable than an eyewitness who does not have a significant interest or bias in the issues at hand (The same goes for people who provide hearsay testimony or oral traditions).

The authors of the Gospels may have used the best information that was available to them at the time. But in my view, none of the Gospels was written by an eyewitness, and most of the material comes from written and oral traditions that may well have roots in eyewitness accounts, but contain significant additions and alterations to the original verbal accounts.

The original eyewitnesses and those who passed on and shaped the oral traditions with roots in the eyewitness accounts, as well as the authors of the four Gospels, have significant biases on the questions about which we are concerned: Was Jesus a wise and perfectly good person? Did Jesus perform miracles? Did Jesus claim to be divine? Did Jesus die on the cross? Was Jesus buried in a stone tomb? Was Jesus alive and well a few days after being crucified?

Finally, in the 21st century we have come to learn that eyewitness testimony and human memory are fairly unreliable. I am a skeptic because I am a cynic, and I am a cynic in large part because the empirical data on human behavior supports cynicism.

People are not very good at remembering events accurately, and people are often dishonest and fail to tell the truth accurately and reliably, even when they do remember events correctly.

So, one more principle to keep in mind:

6. Eyewitness testimony is somewhat unreliable, so the testimony of one or two eyewitnesses should only be taken to make the assertions in the testimony somewhat probable, not certain.

Here in the USA about 10% of people convicted of capital crimes and sent to death row are later discovered to be innocent.
I suspect that as high as 20% of people condemned to death in the USA are innocent. We humans are not very good at remembering the truth, telling the truth, or figuring out the truth, even when someone's life is on the line.

K-Dog said... I agree that John is evangelistic ...

2012-01-11T17:18:46.145-06:00

K-Dog said...

I agree that John is evangelistic (THE PURPOSE OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL: JOHN 20:31 RECONSIDERED D. A. CARSON), but that doesn’t mean that John is necessarily unreliable, or even incapable of being mined for some historical kernels of truth using the criteria of authenticity.

7) I think we should regard the author of the Fourth Gospel as doing what was a frequent practice in his time: based on the words of his master, the author created discourses in which he presented what he considers that his master would have said in response to certain new situations which have arisen since his death.
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Comment:

Your view of the nature of the Fourth Gospel is obviously infomed by the conclusions of NT scholars, and is radically different from the views of most conservative evangelical Christian believers, and of most Christian Apologists.

I don't think that Keith or Chris or I would claim that the Fourth Gospel is 'incapable of being mined for some historical kernels of truth using the criteria of authenticity.'

However, if one needs to 'mine' the Fourth Gospel for 'kernels of truth' this implies that there are many details in the Fourth Gospel that are either fictional or are dubious.

It also implies that the 'kernels of truth' that are arrived at through the use of 'criteria of authenticity' will rarely, if ever, be certain, but will instead be only probable to one degree or another, being the product of complex and subtle interpretation and inference.

It is my contention that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make a strong case for the death and resurrection of Jesus, based on such uncertain premises. Proving a miracle requires much better evidence than what the Gospels have to offer.

Bradley, Right. As I noted in my piece, only s...

2012-01-11T16:43:42.853-06:00

Bradley,

Right. As I noted in my piece, only some conservative Christians are strict infallibilists. There is quite a bit of variation between one and another in the degree of literalism each espouses. Still, I would like a clearer, more definite picture of just how far the skepticism extends. I wonder sometimes if, when pressed about the dubiousness of the details, they do not give lip service to a degree of skepticism, only to slip back into a comfortable literalism in other contexts.

One thing that makes me suspicious of the depth or genuineness of the non-literalism is that when they defend scripture, they so often appeal to the details of other scripture. A case in point is the critique of the hallucination theory given by Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli (conservative Catholics, not evangelicals) in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics. BTW, I critique their critique both in Why I am not a Christian (Secular Web) and The Empty Tomb, edited by Lowder and Price, Prometheus Books.

Kreeft and Tacelli attack the hallucination theory by saying that it cannot account for all of the details of the appearance stories. In other words, the hallucination theory is wrong because the details of the appearance stories are right and the hallucination theory cannot account for these. But if it did not happen, there is nothing to account for. Kreeft and Tacelli repeatedly beg the question against the skeptic by assuming the 100% truth of the appearance stories. Further, this is a common pattern. If you question the empty tomb narratives, William Lane Craig replies (in part) that the Gospel burial stories support the empty tomb account. But the burial stories have to be true if they are to support the empty tomb story. So, the very task of apologetics seems to require that very many of the details be taken as literally true.

Mike Gant said... Is it earthshaking news that an...

2012-01-11T16:31:54.725-06:00

Mike Gant said...

Is it earthshaking news that ancient documents were not written according to modern stands?

Are moderns so narrow-minded that they cannot adjust to reading ancient documents according to the standards by which they were written?
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Response:

It is earthshaking news to some people, especially when they realize what this implies about the accuracy and reliability of the Gospel accounts of the ministry and teachings of Jesus, and of the 'final' days of Jesus' life.

It is not earthshaking news to NT scholars, including mainstream and conservative NT scholars, and including most evangelical NT scholars. But you would not know this from reading books of Christian Apologetics.

Many have made the adjustment and no longer assume that the Gospels provide accurate and reliable accounts of the details of the life and teachings of Jesus.

But the people in the pews of Evangelical Christian churches are largely and blissfully ignorant of how modern NT scholars read and interpret the Gospels, and the same is true of people in the pews of Catholic churches, and mainline Protestant churches as well. Most books on Apologetics rely upon this ignorance and even promote this sort of ignorance.

Richard Swinburne built his case for God in large part because he looked out upon Christian believers, ministers and theologians and saw appalling ignorance of modern science and a complete failure to address the question of whether Christianity was still a viable intellectual position in view of the apparent threat to religious belief posed by science.

The same sort of ignorance and failure to address NT and Historical Jesus scholarship exists among Christian believers, ministers, theologians, and apologists today, with a few notable exceptions.

To K-Dog... I appreciate your enthusiastic partic...

2012-01-11T15:58:52.691-06:00

To K-Dog...

I appreciate your enthusiastic participation here, and the content of your comments/objections. However, it would be helpful to me, and probably to others, if you could provide a brief quote from Keith's post, or from whoever it is that you are commenting on, in relation to each point you make.

In some cases, it is not clear to me what you are responding to in Keith Parson's post, and a brief quote would provide the needed context to better understand your point.

If you have the time, since you have numbered all your points, you could copy and paste the relevant quotes from Keith's post and associate those quotes to the appropriate number of the point you made.

If you don't have the time, I will probably request quotes for some of your specific points that are of particular interest to me.

Mike Gantt said... What I suggest would be a bett...

2012-01-11T13:37:02.101-06:00

Mike Gantt said...

What I suggest would be a better way of reasoning this issue is to say, "If there is no God, then resurrection is an unacceptable answer; but if there is a God who created us all, resurrection would be entirely plausible." That would free you to follow where the evidence leads.

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Comment:

The issue of the existence of God is clearly relevant to the issue of whether miracles occur. However, it is not obvious that God, if there is one, would perform miracles, nor is it obvious that God would be likely to perform the specific miracle of raising Jesus from the dead.

One needs to, like Richard Swinburne, provide reasons and arguments in support of the assumption that God would be likely to perform miracles and that God would be likely to raise Jesus from the dead.

Since Jesus held and promoted false and morally repugnant beliefs about God, it seems unlikely to me that God would raise Jesus from the dead and thus provide a divine stamp of approval on those false and morally repugnant beliefs.

On the more general question of whether God would be likely to perform miracles, God's failure to prevent the murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis, and millions of others by the Nazis and their allies, it appears to me that any omnipotent and omniscient being that might exist either does not care about the lives of human beings or else has some sort of difficult-to-discern reason for adopting a non-interventionist policy towards human beings.

In either case (an uncaring deity or a caring but non-interventionist deity) the use of miracles by a deity seems unlikely.

Furthermore, the alleged primary purpose for miracles is revelation - teaching human beings about God. But if God is a perfectly good person, then he is not an egotistical, self-obsessed person who feels compelled to make others people worship him or know him or love him. So, although revelation might provides some positive impact on human lives, it is not something that God, if there were a God, would have a strong or compelling motivation towards.

In short, if a perfectly good God can stand by and do nothing while hundreds of thousands of innocent Jewish children are brutalized, starved, and murdered, then God can certainly stand by and do nothing when some Hindu or Buddhist or Muslim adopts a mistaken theological belief about the nature of God.

Bradley Bowen, Is it earthshaking news that ancie...

2012-01-11T07:52:32.664-06:00

Bradley Bowen,

Is it earthshaking news that ancient documents were not written according to modern stands?

Are moderns so narrow-minded that they cannot adjust to reading ancient documents according to the standards by which they were written?

Do the differing writing standards between ancient and modern times mean that modern documents are accurate and reliable while ancient documents are inaccurate and unreliable?

Does punctiliousness in what's minor equate to faithfulness in what's major?

Did the ancients regard truth as less important than moderns do?

Shall we moderns throw up our hands and declare we can known nothing of ancient history because the ancients didn't have our tools and methods?

Your goal seems to be to cast doubt on the accuracy and reliability of the Hebrew Bible including its appendix (the New Testament). You can only do so by ignoring the enormous care that went into preserving documents considered sacrosanct.

Keith Parsons said... In short, for anyone who wa...

2012-01-10T14:02:08.751-06:00

Keith Parsons said...

In short, for anyone who wants a clear picture of what happened, especially concerning the resurrection and the postmortem appearances, the Gospels are a mess. Consequently, many of the things we would most like to know will remain forever elusive.
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Comment:

For similar reasons, we also cannot know the details of the trial(s), crucifixion, and burial of Jesus, meaning that we have (at best) probabilities (e.g., .3, .4, .5, .6, .7, and only rarely .8 and .9).

Thus, when we suppose it to be true that Jesus was alive and walking around (without assistance) on the first Easter Sunday (as in my dilemma argument), this supposition undermines the already less-than-certain claims about what happened on Good Friday.

If the Gospels claim or imply that Jesus was stabbed in the heart on Good Friday, then in view of the questionable realiability and accuracy of the Gospel accounts (esp. the Fourth Gospel), we can only give that detail a modest probability (e.g. .6 or .7), and then when you add into the mix the supposition that Jesus was alive and walking around (without assistance) on the first Easter, that probability is dramatically decreased. People who are alive and well on Sunday are not people who have been stabbed in the heart two days before.

The same sort of empirically-based assumption about the 'deadliness' of heart wounds (used by apologists to try to establish the death of Jesus), leads to significant doubt about the occurrence of the alleged heart wound, if one supposes Jesus to have been alive and well on Easter Sunday.

Keith Parsons said... Now, of course we do not kn...

2012-01-10T13:21:36.659-06:00

Keith Parsons said...

Now, of course we do not know what our imaginary historian would have concluded, but it should be abundantly clear that his product would be very different from the Gospel records. Unlike our critical historian, the writers of the Synoptic Gospels cite no specific sources or eyewitnesses at all (John is an apparent exception).
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Comment:
This is a very basic and significant problem with the Gospel accounts which should lead any objective evaluator of the Gospels to be skeptical about the accuracy and reliability of (at least) the details contained in those accounts.

Alhough the Fourth Gospel specifically refers to an eyewitness called 'the beloved disciple', it does not name this person, or provide any significant information about this alleged eyewitness, nor does the Gospel indicate which stories and which details in the Gospel come from 'the beloved disciple'. So, even if we grant the assumption that there was an eyewitness who contributed some of the material in the Fourth Gospel, we don't know anything about the honesty and reliabiilty of this eyewitness and we don't know which stories and details come from this eyewitness. Thus, the credibility of the Fourth Gospel is not established (or even significantly improved) by this assumption.

Keith Parsons said... Let’s try a thought experi...

2012-01-10T12:57:52.297-06:00

Keith Parsons said...

Let’s try a thought experiment: What would a contemporary account of Jesus have looked like had it been written by a historian with the resources, aims, and methods of a modern critical historian? Let’s imagine then that around C.E. 60, when Peter and other eyewitnesses would still have been alive and vigorous, a skeptical but sympathetic historian decided to get to the bottom of this Jesus business and write the definitive account. Let’s make the anachronistic supposition that he would have had the objectives and resources and would have employed the methods of a well-supported modern critical historian.
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Comment:
Yes. A bit of reflection on this thought experiment makes it obvious that the Gospels are nothing like modern history.

It is also important to note that even among evangelical NT scholars, the naive view that the Gospels should be read as straight history (i.e. accurate in all details) is often rejected. It is not the case that only a small segment of very liberal/skeptical NT scholars recognize that the Gospels cannot meet the standards of accuracy and reliability that we expect of modern historical writing. The reverse is the case; only a small segment of very conservative NT scholars view the Gospels as meeting modern standars of accuracy and reliability. Many conservative NT scholars have rejected this viewpoint.

For example, I was just skimming Scot McKnight's book on Jesus (The Story of the Christ) last night, and he emphasizes in the opening chapter that the Gospels are (1) based on oral traditions (that allow for addition and alteration of details), that (2)were translated from Aramaic into Greek (involving some interpretation in the process), and that the translated oral traditions were then re-shaped by the Gospel authors in accordance with their theological and dramatic purposes (thus allowing for more added or altered details).

McKnight, a conservative NT scholar, makes it clear that the Gospels should not be held to the same high standards of accuracy and reliability that we use for modern historical writings.

Another conservative NT scholar, Craig A Evans, is not as clear on this point as McKnight, but his book on Jesus (Fabricating Jesus) strongly suggests a rejection of the naive view that the Gospels are to be read in terms of modern standards of accuracy and reliability.

My general impression is that Evangelical Christian apologists are disconnected from the thinking of Evangelical NT scholars. NT scholars, even of the Evangelical Christian variety, are more rational and objective in their views of the Gospels than Christian Apologists. Apologists are like the Sales & Marketing Dept. and NT scholars are like the Engineers. The Sales people will happily make unreasonable claims that no Engineer would dream of making or defending.

Thus the issue between Geisler (Sales) and Licona (Engineering).

I think that what is important in the Gospels is t...

2012-01-07T19:03:57.727-06:00

I think that what is important in the Gospels is the teaching of Jesus. After all most space in the Gospels is dedicated to that teaching. Given that the Gospels were written in a haphazard manner and later edited by many hands, and given that Jesus’ words in them reveal a clearly identifiable psychological unity and also express a coherent and sophisticated ethical theory, I tend to believe that the Gospels preserve quite well Jesus’ actual teaching. I understand it was common at that place and time to carefully memorize and also write down the sayings of wise people, which would explain how that precision in the records came about.

Further, I find it quite plausible that at some time not too long after Jesus’ crucifixion (a few decades at most), the need arose within the quickly growing religious movement for a more complete written account of Jesus’ life, and that the rather accurate sayings were interwoven into a story based both on remembrance and on legend. I think that the broad outlines of the account are probably historical, because the Gospels started to circulate within living memory of Jesus’ life, and it would be easy for the enemies of the fledging religion to point out obvious errors using actual eyewitnesses. Thus, for example, I think it is probable that the corpse of Jesus was at first placed in the tomb that belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, who was a sympathetic member of the Sanhedrin, and so on.

I personally do not understand the fuss about the miracle stories. If naturalism is true then the miracle stories are simply embellishments, designed to impress the newcomers, and also sometimes to symbolically to illustrate a spiritual point. If Christianity is true then the miracle stories are irrelevant. If Jesus was God incarnate what relevance does it have whether He really transformed water into wine at the wedding at Cana? Or what is lost from Christianity if the miracle stories are only embellishments? I personally find the miracle stories unlikely on theological grounds. And also on psychological grounds: if the disciples did experience such a plethora of miracles then their reported doubts and fears strike me as incoherent. Anyway I may be mistaken in my judgment about miracles, but in my list of things worthwhile to investigate further this is close to last.

As for the resurrection story. I find it plausible that the bereaved inner circle of the disciples did undergo some powerful and life-changing experience a few days after the crucifixion. Whether that experience was of the bodily and touchable presence of Jesus, or whether it was a more difficult to describe mystical experience, is difficult to say. Indeed the Gospel stories point towards both possibilities. As for the means: Did Jesus’ corpse actually physically rise albeit transformed into some new kind of matter, or did the disciples only suffer some kind of group hallucination? Well, who knows? As far as I am concerned both means are consistent with Christianity. After all let us not forget that on theism the natural order is continuously upheld by God’s general providence. (To put it simply when an apple falls according to the natural law of gravity, it’s God’s will that causes it to thus fall.) So, whether God chose to cause the disciples to undergo their life-changing experience within the natural order, or else chose to cause some literal miracle - is not particularly relevant. I personally tend to believe that a miracle took place, but, again, I believe this on theological grounds, grounds which a non-Christian (never mind a non-theist) does not share with me.

As for Hume's beautiful argument; it is demons...

2012-01-06T17:46:39.541-06:00

As for Hume's beautiful argument; it is demonstrably fallacious. Hume had an excuse because probability calculus hadn't been fully developed in his day, but we now know that what Hume forgot to factor was the probability that if a miraculous event didn't happen, then we should have the evidence that we do. For example, the report of the winning lottery pick is an extraordinarliy improbable event, but the improbability that we should hear that number reported if it weren't really the winning lotto pick is even higher. So, in terms of the resurrection, what is the probability that we would have the evidence of the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples belief if the resurrection actually didn't happen? Well, if that improbability is high enough, it outweighs any initial improbability. Why think there is any initial improbability to begin with? If there aren't any conclusive arguments for atheism (which there aren't), then an agnostic wouldn't believe that miracles have a high intrinsic improbability. As for Fogelin's book, I think he fell very short of refuting Earman's argument. For example, Fogelin doesn't interact with at least three fundamental arguments Earman raises: the epistemic significance of multiple witnesses, for example, or Hume’s neglect of the voluminous literature from the deist controversy, or the notorious passage on the Indian prince.

The first of these in particular is of the utmost importance. John DePoe has shown how just 10 witnesses can have the effect of overcoming a prior improbability of a million to one, with a posterior confidence of .9999!

Hume's argument is still far from 'beautiful.' Didn't you write your dissertation on a this topic?!

2012-01-06T17:43:19.314-06:00

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